


in the black

by hellopurpletiger (Felix_Kawaii)



Series: Library of W.I.Ps (emphasis on the W not the P) [5]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14270415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felix_Kawaii/pseuds/hellopurpletiger
Summary: A deadly virus spreads across the UK. Percy is stuck in the Black Zone with no visible escape route insight. But they're going to make it. Or at least try.(gore warning)





	in the black

**Author's Note:**

> Work in progress, emphasis on the work not the progress...

It started innocently enough. They thought it was just a bug going round, a bad case of flu in the neighbourhood. Then, in a tiny little farming village called Wickham, isolated in the rolling green valleys, the first, sort of, death. Suddenly, it was like the floodgates had opened. Within a week, the entire population – two hundred strong - of Wickham was gone, dead, kind of. And then it spread to Anderson and Seafield. By the fortnight, the disease had travelled sixty kilometres to spread across the East Midlands and was eating into Nottingham.

Granton was just over an hour's drive away from the train station in Nottingham. Idyllic and nestled in between the bounding green hills of the Lake District, in the middle of nowhere. Really, it was only a couple of streets and junctions with a smattering of tourist and outdoor shops with flats built above the stores and a grocer's on the corner.  Breathing harshly, sixteen-year-old Percy Jackson halted on a mucky yellow bike outside _Gabe’s Gun Shop_ , its large display windows boarded and shuttered. He leaned against the door frame, keying in the entry code with one hand whilst the other brought the hem of a nearly black shirt up to wipe at his brow, slick with sweat.

The door clicked open and he slipped inside, wheeling the bike behind him, the darkened store a cool relief to his burning skin. Immediately, he shut the door behind himself and loosened the straps of his mask before letting his heavy rucksack fall to the floor.

“P-put your hands u-up!” There was the unmistakeable cock of a gun.

Percy frowned in the dim light, pulled the surgical mask off his face and raised his hands.

“Grover, it’s me, put the gun down.” He sighed.

The sound of fumbling in the darkness, cloth rustling and the dull thump of someone knocking into a cabinet. A candle flickered into existence, illuminating the room with a pale glow.

Grover stood behind the cashier, shoulders slumping in relief, blushing sheepishly. “Sorry, I thought you were…”

“I know.”

Behind him, a little dark-haired boy darted out from the storeroom, colliding with Percy’s chest with the enthusiasm only a seven-year could possess. With a sigh, Percy hauled him up and let Nico cling to him as he bought the supplies into the back room, Grover in his crutches following closely behind.

It was a small space, big enough for a sofa, a little table and a couple of chairs. There was little light, apart from a small pane of glass by the vent and Grover set about lighting the candles before shutting the storeroom door.

“So, how was it?”

Percy settled onto the battered couch, sinking into its too soft cushions. It was terrible, he wanted to say. It had been scorching outside, the tip of his nose was peeling and he was still seeing spots from how bright the pavement was. Every surface was hot to the touch, scalding his fingertips. The sound of groaning was almost constant now, a low drone that pervaded through Granton. The worst was the smell…the smell of blood and rotting flesh that turned his stomach no matter how many times it found him.

“Okay, I guess,” He replied, peeling off the sweat lined anorak and shirt after prying his little cousin off him. “I went down Jack Alley, raided a few houses.” He lifted his schoolbag onto the table, it’s zipper practically splitting with the amount within. “I got some soup, a few more gas cans and a couple bags of rice – should be enough to last us a couple more days.”

Grover pursed his lips, “We’re running out of candles.”

“Yeah, I went by Greendale’s and the outside looks intact so I’ll get something if I can.”

“You filled the water canister, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Nico gave him a sharp poke with his elbow. “What about me? Did you get anything for me?”

Percy let the smile on his face show and reached a hand into the bag. “There you go, mate, got you these.” He pulled out a smaller plastic bag and handed it to Nico with an indulgent smile.

The little boy gasp, his face lighting up, “…Mythomagic!”

The older boys shared a smile.

* * *

Percy let his head hit the wall as the cold water flushed sporadically from the showerhead above him. The water mains would probably fail soon, its main source was Nottingham after all and there was no telling if anyone was still alive there. He scrubbed as much of the dirt off himself as he could before switching the shower off.

Despite it, he still felt dirty.

A month ago, he had been going to Nottingham High with Grover, moaning about homework and checking out the girls in his PE class and now, he was responsible for the lives of his seven-year old cousin, crippled best friend and the deaths of his family and friends.

The disease that had swept the county was unnamed still, as new as it was. In Granton, the community were close-knit and had hoped themselves to be untouched by the fatalities. They’d even issued out white dust masks. It took one man, the minister, who had gone to church in Nottingham to enter the town and overnight everything changed.

The virus was fast acting and incredibly contagious. It was in its victim’s saliva, blood and urine and once you were contaminated, sixty minutes was enough to do you in. When it spread, Percy had been upstairs, in the flat above the shop, watching cartoons with Nico.

There had been a lot of yelling downstairs and then the crack of a gunshot. It was terrifying, he remembered, thinking back to those heart stopping moments, as he told Nico to stay put, grabbing Gabe’s sleek shotgun from the kitchen drawer.

Had there been a robbery? He had locked the door behind him and crept downstairs. Or had his step-father’s temper finally gotten the better of him?

He peaked round the storeroom door.

There had been a man lying on the floor, trench coat ripped and muddied and dark with a spreading black stain, which leaked thick and black across the floor boards. The lights flickered above Percy’s head. Gabe span around, the only handgun in the shop, his own personal one, in hand.

For a moment, they had stared at each other in silence. Percy had noted several things in that moment. One, the man on the floor had been infected. Two, the man on the floor was Mr Darcy, the gardener, from next door, who liked to trim his hedges into cool shapes to show Nico. Three, Gabe’s left arm was crimson with blood. It dripped slowly, drops hitting the floor and meeting Mr Darcy’s blackish blood with a soft hiss. He had been infected too.

The next few seconds were a blur of adrenaline and terror, bullets filling the air, ducking behind the counter.

_“I won’t let you kill me!”_

Distantly, Percy had wondered whether his mum was okay. She was the one who drilled into him what to do if he ever came across an infected person.

_“Don’t think, just get away. Once the infection starts, there is nothing to be done. If you can’t get away, just end it. A body that cannot think, cannot feel, doesn’t understand, is no way to live.”_

Gabe, no matter how cruel, petty and downright abusive he was, did not deserve to be slaughtered like this, put down like a rabid dog. No one did, but…

Percy raised his arm and shot once.

* * *

His watch read 17:30 when he left the bathroom. His skin was still damp, t-shirt sticking to the small of his back, but the flat was cooler than earlier. Outside, the sun was still drifting through the sky, but less intensely as a few wisps of clouds hovered.

Grover was waiting for him in the living room, his black leather notebook in his hand, his favourite biro in the other, scribbling yet another list. Percy sunk into the sofa, cool drops of water dripping down the back of his neck from his inky black, still wet hair. He sat in silence as his best friend carried own with his checklist. Pretty soon after the infection, they’d established a system. Percy would go out and get supplies, scout the dwindling town for signs of life. Grover would stay at the flat with Nico, cook, clean, try and get the old radio to work, and make lists. The boy was obsessive about lists, in a good and very practical way, with one for every category, all prioritised in order of importance. And Nico would try to make them all smile a little while they kept him as innocent as they could.

“Water’s running out.”

Percy started and glanced up at the furrowed lines on Grover’s brow. “I know, the shower’s getting weaker and weaker,” He rubbed the back of his neck and made a face when he found it peeling and dry, “I found an open manhole this morning, so maybe _they_ got down into the sewer and burst a pipe or something.”

“Can we, I dunno, get water anywhere else?”

He sighed, “I’ve getting the water from the reserve tank in the Town Hall but that’s gonna run dry pretty soon too. I’m sure I’ll find another place but…”

_I don’t know how long we can live like this._

“Perce,” Grover sighed, “I hate to tell you but the food we’re getting is not great.”

“No shit.”

“I mean, we can’t eat actual meat because it’s all gone off by now, we can’t get any fresh meat ‘cause all the animals are gone.  Any vegetables we get are wilted and there’s been no sign of rain lately at all. All we’ve eaten lately is carbs and pulses or tinned crap.”

He gritted his teeth, “I’m trying, okay! Everything else has gone bad! How am I supposed to find healthy food when it’s all got mould on it!”

There was a tense silence. Particles of dust drifted lazily through a golden sunbeam, moved by an invisible breath of stale air.

“Have you thought about leaving Granton?”

Percy stared. Leaving?

Grover looked sad and pale, despite it being the height of summer outside, a shade of the funny guy he used to be. “I’m on your side Percy. I’m not trying to fight you. You’ve done a good job of looking after us.” He swallowed. “But…” Putting down his lists, Grover took Percy by the wrist and led him over to where they slept, pushing open the door quietly. “Just look at him and try and tell me we can live like this.”

The master bedroom’s curtains were drawn tightly to try and keep the room cool. Outside he could hear the groans of the infected getting louder, previously tucked away down in the sewers, away from the intense afternoon sun. It would be cool enough for them to come out soon. Inside the room, a camp bed was squished in next to his Mum and Gabe’s double, and in the middle of the double, with his t-shirt thrown off in rebellion against the summer heat was Nico, snoring gently. Around him were his beloved Mythomagic cards, worn from use, and his favourite Hades figurine and Hercules’ toy sword.

But Nico was seven years old, not three. He shouldn’t be sleeping so much. Percy brushed some of his curlier hair away from his sweaty forehead. Nico had gotten so pale! His skin looked translucent compared to Percy’s own sunburnt arms. What if an unhealthy, unbalanced diet stunted his growth? Or affected his development? A month of being locked up in the apartment, wondering where his big sister was, where Aunt Sally and Smelly Gabe were. A whole month.

It was amazing he didn’t look worse, other than being a little too pale. A little too tired.

Percy sighed and straightened. “I get it.” He rubbed his neck, “We probably need at least a couple days to prepare…maybe find a van? Stock up on everything…”

Grover seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m glad, man.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve been feeling more and more antsy and…” He closed his eyes. “Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier but, I finally got the radio to work…”

“What?!” Percy grinned, feeling a tiny bit of hope for the first time in weeks. Maybe they could get a signal out, or maybe get a message. Maybe there were other survivors? Was the government making any progress? He felt the beginnings of giddy laughter bubble up in his throat.

Grover bit his lip, slumping, “The Prime Minister was giving a speech.” He slumped down to the floor. Percy felt his heart slow and loud in his ears, could hear his blood rushing, the groans of the infected outside faded away to static. Grover’s eyelids slid shut.

“They’re cordoning everything from Leicester to Sheffield, everything in an eighty mile radius of the epicentre at Wickham. They’ve declared it a Black Zone.”

Percy stared. “But…can’t we just, y’know, drive out of it?”

Grover stared at his hands. “Nobody is allowed in, nobody is allowed out. Anybody caught trying to leave will end with a bullet between their eyes.”

Nico hummed in his sleep, and let out a contented sigh.

“They’re leaving us to our fates.” Grover’s hands clenched into fists. “They’ve blacked off the area and are leaving us to die.”

Nico was ecstatic at the thought of leaving the flat.

“And I’ll be able to go outside? With you?” The little boy was practically vibrating where he stood, clutching his figurine Minotaur plushie, Meeno.

Percy knelt down to his height and gave the boy a forced smile. “Yeah, we’re all going.”

Grover watched them silently from his place at the kitchen counter, boiling pasta over the gas camp stove they’d used since the electricity main went out. Part of him was terrified of leaving this place, perhaps forever. He’d been in foster care since he was three and bounced between homes which cared little for his cerebral palsy and even less for an extra child to clothe and feed. Emma, his social worker had always looked after him when he was between homes and it was she that lived here in Granton. He’d only been visiting after all, planning to pop over to see Percy’s for a movie after his best mate had finished babysitting his cousin.

He’d been sitting in Emma’s living room, watching soaps on the couch when it had all gone to shit. He hadn’t even noticed her getting up.

Suddenly, she had been screaming and yelling at him to _run_ . He’d never heard someone scream like that before, thick with agony, tears and ugly with terror, choking on themselves. It had sent a shudder down his spine and suddenly it was like he was back there again, with his biological parents in that dingy, council home, crack house. Emma was screaming and screaming for him to _get away_ and _run._

But Grover had been a cripple, Grover the loser, the dead last, the _slow as fuck_ all his life.

He was running whilst people were walking, walking whilst people were crawling, crawling whilst they were _standing still_ all his life in an effort to keep up.

He’d snatched up his crutches, and darted across the entrance hall to lock himself in the bathroom.

The last he’d seen of Emma, was her eyes wide with terror as she lay on the floor, mouth agape in a scream as the monster above her ripped a chunk of bloody flesh off her neck, her fingers crimson as they scratched on her precious, waxed smooth, oak floorboards to get away, and then the bathroom door had slammed shut.

The next moments were somewhat a blur. In a haze, he’d locked the door, shoved the laundry hamper against it and crawled into the cupboard under the sink, bolting the door with one of his crutches and holding the other shakily like a weapon.

He still didn’t know how long he’d spent in that cramped space, hyperventilating, pressed up against bottles of bleach and sink cleaner, until the cupboard door was opening and he was being pulled against Percy’s shoulder, both of them sobbing.

_“I was so worried, I thought…”_

_“Is she…oh my god…she’s…”_

Granton had been a little slice of home for him for a long time, but recent memories had tainted it like the disease ridden citizens on its streets. Part of him wanted to stay, nursed a naive little hope that they could fix the quaint little town Emma had loved, but he mostly wanted to leave. They’d raided most of the shops on the Main Street already and all of the ones in Jack Alley. Too soon, he knew, they would run out of food.

Percy was cracking with the stress, he knew. It had seemed like ages ago that they were just best mates and not survivors of an epidemic. He’d trusted Percy before this but now he relied on Percy to keep him alive. It had been so long since they had done something fun, watch a movie, play hookie, headed to the arcade. This new dynamic they had was no less strong but a heavier sort of friendship, one that was heavily reliant on each other.

But whilst he and Nico were stuck inside, Percy was out there. Granton was only a small town and everybody knew everybody. Percy was firing bullets at people he had seen every day, passed on the street, Mr Reubin who had ruffled his hair and snuck him an extra scoop of ice cream from his van, Daisy Corbin who always yelled like a banshee whenever he pranked her and her newest boyfriend, Louis Jarvis who had babysat for his mum when he was a toddler and suffered Gabe’s rages when he went to fix his car at the garage - every day he would see them as ugly parodies of themselves, as the fond memories tainted by the rabid, mindless things they were now as he fought and gunned them down to save his own life.

They had to get out of here, before the faces Percy saw outside broke him.

Grover gave the saucepan a stir and added the tins – chopped tomatoes, spam and kidney beans – and let them simmer, the tomato juices bubbling merrily.

“Grover, Is it ready yet?” Nico asked from his chair at the table, “I’m staaaaaarrrrrrrrving!” He whined, rubbing his belly.

“Yeah, Grove,” Percy smirked, “Staaaarrrrving.”

He rolled his eyes, brushing away the dark thoughts like old spiders’ webs, “Patience, people!”

“But we’re hungry!” The seven-year-old whined.

“Yeah, Grove, we’re hungry!”

He spun round, feeling his leg braces click in protest and his crutches shift on the carpet. “I thought you were in the middle of telling us the plan for tomorrow, Mr Jackson?” He arched an eyebrow.

Percy laughed, deep and belly-aching, for the first time since this whole fiasco had started and Grover knew he was right in pushing them to move. The sixteen-year-old looked lighter than he had in a while, shoulders less tense, green eyes a little brighter.

“Sorry,” Percy chuckled, the last of his laughter tapering off, mirth still in his tone. “Right so, we’re leaving this place in three days for an adventure, Nico, so we’ve got a lot of stuff to pack before we leave, otherwise we might leave stuff behind that we need.”

Nico nodded sagely, “Like on Mythomagic, when Jack forgot his sword at home because he was late for school.”

“Er…right. Like that.” Percy met Grover’s eyes across the table, mouthing ‘ _who’s Jack?’_ and looking completely clueless. “So we’re gonna be really busy for the next few days, and Grover is gonna need your help to sort out the stuff in my old room, yeah?”

“Oh! Like when Lorrie helped Jack pack for his quest to find the magical hippo?”

 _‘Magical Hippo? What?’_ Percy’s eyebrows were nearly at his hairline and Grover had to turn round to face the stove to keep a straight face. As it was he was practically biting his fist to keep from guffawing at Percy’s lack of knowledge about anything Mythomagic related.

“Er…yeah.”

Grover gave the pasta one last stir and dished it out into paper bowls for the table, an empty one for Meeno the Minotaur, before seating himself.

The pasta was alright, still hot; the tomatoes sour enough to make his toes curl; the spam, salty as hell which couldn’t possibly be healthy and the kidney beans mashing under his teeth as he scooped a bite. If he had some herbs maybe that would make it better, fresh tomatoes and squash and cuts of thick bacon and it could be a real nice meal.

“Grover this is AMAZING!” He jumped as Nico yelled across the table with his mouth full of tomato-ey spam. “We should ban Percy from cooking forever!”

“Hey! My cooking’s amazing too!”

Nico fixed Percy a narrow eyed stare. “It sucks like poo.” His little button nose wrinkled. “And it comes out black.”

“It does not!” Percy pouted, arms crossing across his blue t-shirt. “Grove, back me up here.”

Grover gave both his boys a deadpan stare and let them sweat a little in silence. “Don’t talk about poo at the dinner table, Nico.” Percy grinned triumphantly, “And Percy your cooking does suck.”

“Ha!” Nico crowed through a forkful of pasta, “Sucks like…” he wilted under Grover’s gaze and hurriedly dug into his plate again.


End file.
